Sunday, May 20, 2007

Inspiration

My former student and current friend Helena Bouchez is the first blogger I've known personally. She is a multi-talented individual - a musician, a PR diva, a "connector" in the Malcolm Gladwell sense and an excellent writer with deep insight into her own inner workings. You can view her blog here. Helena does some work for Lakland, a company that designs and creates great bass guitars here in Chicago. I play their instruments exclusively - they are very comfy to play and can give a player a wide palette of tones to choose from.

Helena's work ethic and self-effacing writing style have had me mulling a blog of my very own for awhile. Despite my personal inertia I'm choosing to honor her example and do some of my own clackety-clacking.

Inspiration of another kind led me to choose the spirit name Fierce Wolf for myself a few years ago. I don't want to wax New Ageist, but I had an intense meditative experience at a mens' weekend retreat sponsored by The Mankind Project.

I'm not at liberty to disclose the content of the work that gets done on their New Warrior Training Adventure but suffice it to say that it includes choosing a name. A couple of years after that experience I learned that my Yiddish given name "Velvel" translates as "wolf". A bit of extra glue never hinders the sticking process...